Smith took the case of his cousin in Georgia who had been fired
for refusing to take back a statement that he had discovered that
some of the workers he supervised were undocumented. Soon an
attorney-client privilege issued developed -- whether mid-trial
appeal is allowable on decisions on attorney-cliet
privilege.

The Supreme Court ended up taking the case, and it was heard on
Justice Sonia Sotomayor's first day of hearing arguments on the
Court.

But before the arguments could be made, all the briefing had to
be done. And Smith got a lot of pressure from firms with more
Supreme Court experince to pass off the task.

Connecticut Law Tribune: Immediately, Smith's phone began to
ring with calls from high-powered Supreme Court specialists, with
offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Chicago and Atlanta. There
are only about 12 firms around the country that regularly handle
Supreme Court cases, and if one of them wasn't involved, Smith
was warned, he wouldn't stand much of a chance.

Smith was admitted to argue before the U.S. Supreme Court, and
was legally entitled to argue his cousin's case. But the
high-pressure callers gave him a lot to worry about. "You could
ruin this for everybody, and mess up the law into the future," he
was told. "I've heard a lot of threats in my time as a lawyer.
But this was something new for me."

Unfortunately, Smith did not name names, so we'll never know who,
exactly, was "nasty."

Smith ended up having Yale Law professor Judith Resnik argue the
case; Resnik took him under her wing, Smith said, and helped him
with the briefing. Smith, did, however, sit at the counsel's
table during arguments.